Holiday Crafting: Celebrating Advent with Renee of Heirloom Seasons

November 23, 2010

Today we are joined by Renee of Heirloom Seasons as she brings us a beautiful craft in the spirit of Advent. It is our hope over the coming weeks to share projects and crafts that families can do together to celebrate the coming holidays ahead, and we think that this is the perfect project to get us started.

We have celebrated Advent for the past several years now, but I never think of making an Advent calendar until the last minute. This year I remembered in plenty of time though, if you can call one week plenty of time.

I spent most of this beautiful snowy day working on the calendar. I took pictures as I went along and am trying to get this posted right away, in case you want to make a last minute (I mean a well planned out, way ahead of time) Advent calendar too.

I had a felted wool sweater which I cut to use as a base. You could use a large sheet of felt as well. My piece is about 12 x 16 inches. I cut it kind of oval but with a flatter bottom and a rounder top. I like this dark blue, reminding me of a cold winter night sky.

I then took some yellow/gold wool roving, made a frame around my base, and gently needle felted it in place.

I made two star templates, a larger one for the Sundays in Advent, smaller stars for the days in between. I chose my colors of wool felt to make the stars.. a soft white, a beautiful turquoise, a bright yellow, and a darker gold for the bigger stars.

And then I cut out lots and lots of stars.

I decided to have 28 spaces on our Advent calendar. We will begin along the path on the first Sunday of Advent (November 28th this year) and we will reach the end of the path on Christmas. In years when the season is shorter we will just have to move along the path a bit more quickly during the last week. You could just do 24 or 25 spaces instead though and always start your calendar on December 1st.

Once I had completed cutting everything out, I laid the stars into a spiral path.

Satisfied with their position I began needle felting them into place. I have done lots of needle felting but always with roving, not felt sheets.. it’s lots of fun! Just hold the smaller stars very carefully as you try to get them secure with the first few pokes. At first they may want to lift right up, but they will soon start to hold. I went around the path getting each one at least a bit attached to begin with, then I didn’t have to worry about them shifting as I went back around and made them more secure. As with most needle felting projects how much or how little you want to felt them is up to you. I liked my stars best needle felted well down onto my base. I am not even really quite done yet, and I may felt the border some more also.

I have not yet decided who or what will be traveling along the path. I thought perhaps Mary, but I think she will be waiting until the last Sunday of Advent to make her appearance.

Our Advent Sprial

The first week we will bring our crystals and stones to our Advent spiral.

The second week we will add plants. I hope to make some wool trees and I will share this part of the project too as soon as I get to it. Another idea would be to just add pine cones, or some small evergreen stems. These will have to go somewhere around the outer edge of the calendar.

The third week we will add animals, maybe a little sheep and some birds. (Thinking out loud here, I’m glad I will have some time each week to work on this rather than having to do it all at once.)

And then on the fourth Sunday we will be greeted by Mary. She will then continue along the path and be joined by her Child of Light on Christmas day. (And possibly Joseph too, but he might have to wait until next year…)

You could leave your Advent calendar much more simple though. Just the spiral star path with a special little something to move along the path.. acorn, a crabapple, an angel, a little shepherd boy, some of the ideas I have had so far…

I will continue to share my progress as the rest of the details come along. I sure am looking forward to this cozy season of creating!

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Renee lives in rural Colorado with her dear husband and two wonderful daughters. They are a Waldorf homeschooling family enjoying a life full of learning, creating, and adventures in the forest. Renee shyly shares some of their days at Heirloom Seasons

I LOVE it!! I will be adopting this idea. What about having a very small candle in a small sturdy candleholder traveling the star path? It might be too tippy, but it would be very cool and I love having candles on the advent spiral.

I really like your spiral path idea. I haven’t got mine quite set up yet. One idea I got from a preschool teacher, was a little donkey travelling along the path of stars, and along the way (throughout Advent) some other animals (a mouse, a chicken, a cat, whatever little animals you have on hand) join him, to meet the child of light. Each takes a gift. The donkey takes some straw to lay in his bed, a golden feather etc.